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Two new primary schools and an eight-classroom extension at Mahurangi College are just a few of the initiatives in the pipeline for local education, as Warkworth expands over the coming years.
The Ministry of Education has confirmed it is in confidential negotiations with landowners both to the south and north of Warkworth for new primary schools. Construction will be dependent on how fast growth occurs.
“We will balance investment in existing schools and new school provision to meet the forecast demand for new student places,” Infrastructure and Digital leader Scott Evans says.
“The Ministry has a number of ways that we respond to projected demand and roll growth. We use enrolment schemes to manage roll pressures, we add additional classrooms to schools to provide more capacity, and we may need to build new schools.”
An eight-classroom, two-storey block is currently in design at Mahurangi College, with building estimated to get started early next year, and a completion date of sometime in 2024. It will accommodate Years 7 and 8 classrooms, and will be built on the existing football field, behind the gymnasiums and swimming pool and next to the bus bay.
The planned works incorporate the removal of existing relocatable buildings, which will allow for replacement playing fields.
Principal Tony Giles says the new block will be one of the first carbon neutral school builds in New Zealand. This means the rooms will be built mostly of wood, with passive heating and cooling.
Once that has opened, attention will turn toward expanding the senior school.
As far as Giles is aware, there are no plans to build an intermediate school or second college in Warkworth and he believes it is more likely that the college will go up, not out.
“One of the challenges all schools face when planning to cater for growth in Warkworth is knowing when it will happen,” he says.
The roll at the college is expected to swell to 2500 over the next 20 years, but Giles says this figure is based on greenfield development and does not include intensification.
If developers take advantage of new medium density rules that come into effect this month, there is every likelihood that roll growth will be bigger and faster than expected.
More students will mean more teaching staff at the college, and this is expected to gradually increase from 95 at present to 135. The larger roll will also demand more common spaces, which could include more technology space and another gym. It could also see the school extending its curriculum to include more niche subjects.
Snells Beach School principal Kathryn Ramel says the roll at her school continues to rise, as former baches are sold and converted into family homes and new residential developments come online.
The Snells primary school roll has doubled over the last four years, and one or two new classrooms have been added to the school every year.
“Most of the growth is in the early grades,” she says. “We’re very bottom heavy, which reflects the number of young families moving to the area. Tracking and making predictions is pretty tough, and you have to make a lot of assumptions.”
Ramel worries about where the teachers will come from to staff the school as it grows.
“It’s a problem schools are facing nationwide,” she says.
Like Mahurangi College, she believes the school will need to go up, rather than out.
She says discussions about accommodating the growth are well underway, as it is all happening faster than predicted.
“A priority will be to keep the family-orientated culture of the school as we grow. It’s very important that all our students feel they belong and are connected,” she says. “I think all our local schools will look different in the near future.”
Warkworth School Board of Trustees chair Sheralyn Cotton did not respond to requests for an interview.
